3 Verulam Buildings

About us

Sitting comfortably and spaciously in a newly refurbished and expanded row of buildings in Gray’s Inn, 3VB is one of the largest and most highly regarded commercial sets, and its members are involved in many of the leading cases. Recent examples include various Russian oligarch disputes, the Lehman Brothers insolvency, Jacobs v JK Rowling, the Al Gosaibi fraud claim (involving ten members of chambers), the Renault Formula 1 hearing at the World Motor Sport Council, and the test case on bank overdraft charges.

3VB’s 20 silks and 45 juniors lead the field in banking, financial services and civil fraud, and are also among the top practitioners in the fields of general commercial, professional negligence, insurance and reinsurance, arbitration, and company and insolvency. Chambers also has significant expertise in IT and telecommunications, energy and media and entertainment.

Much of chambers’ work is international in flavour, and indeed members of chambers frequently appear in foreign courts or arbitrations. Many members of chambers write practitioner works and retain links with academia, and several silks have left chambers to become High Court judges in recent years.

Pupillage

Commercial practice is intellectually demanding and 3VB seeks the brightest and the best. The typical successful applicant will have a first or upper second-class degree (not necessarily in law) from a good university, with good mooting experience and proven experience of the commercial bar (generally through mini-pupillages with us or elsewhere). Many have a masters degree or other legal or commercial experience.

Our pupillage lasts for 12 months, split equally among four of our pupil supervisors, who are some of the best junior tenants at the commercial Bar. During the nine months of pupillage before the tenancy decision, pupils will spend little of their time on their feet, save during the advocacy exercises provided within chambers, seeking to impress pupil supervisors mainly by the quality of the pupils’ drafting. After becoming tenants, however, junior members can expect extensive experience on their feet, more than at many rival sets, dividing their working time between being led by more senior members of chambers in major trials and appeals, and conducting their own smaller banking, contractual or pro bono cases.

For the year 2012–13, chambers is offering up to three funded pupillages, each carrying an award of at least £60,000, up to £20,000 of which may be drawn during the BPTC year. We are committed to recruiting new tenants from our pupils whenever we can. Although tenancy is offered to all pupils who make the grade, on average two out of our three pupils are successful in any one year.

Mini-pupillage

One- to three-day mini-pupillages are an important part of our selection procedure and we strongly encourage prospective applicants for pupillage to apply for a mini-pupillage (e-mail Christopher Bond at minipupillage@3vb.com, attaching a detailed CV).